[Fill in the blank]-shaming is a meme, and it includes defining shame downward. I get that. But let's think about whether we want "shaming" to be a commodious category or a narrow one. I'm inclined to recommend narrow, but I'm highly influenced by the time I spent at the Wisconsin protests, amongst angry people chanting "Shame, shame, shame."

In this "fat-shaming" example, we might say the death of a respected actor ought to be an occasion to praise him, and not to offer up ideas about what he might have done to avert his fate. But I don't hear shaming in that. I hear this wish to avoid death: If only he'd lost weight, he might not have died. And: Fat people need to lose weight, or they might die too. That's more fear than shame.

The person who calls the response "shame"... what's his motivation? He might think "fat-shaming" is a funny, trendy way to refer to any statement about anyone being fat. But I think it's more like: Don't you dare talk about how anyone is fat, because fat people now have a way to bounce what we hear as an insult right back at you.

In the absence of financial or personal consequences for obesity is it any wonder it is becoming epidemic in an affluent society?

If you want to reduce obesity de-regulate insurance rates and allow insurance companies to charge a premium for fat people because their health care costs more. You would also need to remove Medicare and Medicaid subsidies and go to a market based approach with catastrophic over the top. But this is too complicated for the average public school graduate to understand.

Speaking of shaming, and fat, and heart attacks, and butter, that Paula Deen thing is just nuts to me. She is basically getting fired for things she said that never got on the air, but more importantly this whole idea of our new speech codes is incredibly discriminatory, and racist in the name of fighting racism. It really incoherent emotional racism just like the old kind.

For example: Apparently there things that some people cannot say or imply without getting fired. Not just certain words but also completely innocent words combined in the wrong way or said in the presence of some other people.

It might be confusing, but it seems that a white person telling a black person that they have a sweet chocolate face one time in affection is a terrible and firable offence for an entertainer, but a black person threatening and or encouraging the killing whitey over and over in a recording is actually a great thing that brings in nice contracts and lots of money.

People are always saying things like smoking and obesity increase healthcare costs, but I don't see that. They die earlier, not more expensively. Healthy people may well cost the most by being around long enough to use more healthcare (especially with preventative care) than unhealthy ones. They both die in expensive ways at the end, but due to total cost over a lifetime, healthy people might need to be forced fed in smoke filled rooms if we want to control costs.

The classic is the guy who wrote the book on running and died jogging at 52. He had a bad family history, though. A friend of mine with a bad family history is an exercise nut and is now over 80 and looks 60.

According to the NY Post:Gandolfini guzzled four shots of rum, two pina coladas, and two beers at dinner with his son — while he chowed down on two orders of fried king prawns and a “large portion” of foie gras, a hotel source in Rome said.

Sounds to me like he died happy. Good for him. Screw the joyless scolds. I'll think of him when I have a steak and a couple of beers later tonight.

The very vocal outrage over Paula Deen is another blame deflection technique in which the subject, who has said and/or thought all the things Paula Deen has admitted to, or worse, deflects potential blame by publicly professing shock and outrage, OUTRAGE I SAY, about that horrible horrible person.

Every month or so someone in the entertainment industry has to be sacrificed to the mob. Preferably a Christian or a Southerner. Then the rest of the industry ritually disowns them. It's like the scene in Star Wars where one of Jabba the Hutt's pig soldiers falls into the pit with the loathesome Alien thing and the rest of the pigs all cluster around the edge of the pit and taunt and laugh at his feeble attempts to escape being eaten.

The people who should get health care discounts and our thanks are the ones in danger of a quick early death: primarily hang gliders, but people in any dangerous sport, especially Russian roulette. The best cost saving is from those who take a few others out as well. Here I'm thinking of drunk drivers, speeding drivers, gang members, terrorists, and drug dealers, or as I like to think of them "health care cost heroes".

According to the NY Post:Gandolfini guzzled four shots of rum, two pina coladas, and two beers at dinner with his son — while he chowed down on two orders of fried king prawns and a “large portion” of foie gras, a hotel source in Rome said.

Sounds to me like he died happy. Good for him. Screw the joyless scolds. I'll think of him when I have a steak and a couple of beers later tonight.

Not happy. That was a man trying to put something behind him and that's what killed him.

Darrell said...

Fat people in general live longer. And have the weight to spare when serious illness culls the thin. But go ahead and feel superior. Btw, I am on the thin side of normal--so you can save the snark.Define fat, but The Blonde agrees with you.

Too thin and you have nothing to keep you going when you get very ill and a real bout with the flu or something can really take it out of you.

There's a golden mean, as it were, although it seems a bit wider than the NIH or the media want people to believe.

> If you want to reduce obesity de-regulate insurance rates and allow insurance companies to charge a premium for fat people because their health care costs more.

(1) Are you willing to let them charge on an actuarial basis or do you "know" the right number?(2) Do "too skinny" people get the same treatment?(3) Are you willing to let insurance companies charge more/less for everything on an actuarial basis or is "weight" special? For example, women use more healthcare than men - can they be charged more? (The difference persists long after child-bearing.)

Prejudice against fat people is just as morally wrong as prejudice against people because of race. Not only are the remarks cruel, but they are also ignorant since the death rate for overweight people is not any worse or even better than that for skinny people.

The left has crossed a red line which respected peoples' right to privacy. When people make choices which affect no one but themselves, other people should butt out. The present trend was begun when the left attack smokers, persecute them, and treat them like second class citizens. At the beginning they had to manufacture an argument that the smokers were harming other people with second hand smoke although the scientific evidence to prove that position has been hard to come by. The argument about second hand smoke was useful as a pretext to control smokers' personal behavior.

Supporters of Obamacare and similar schemes should hope we all die as Gandolfini did. He paid into Medicare 30 years (assuming he started working at 21) and got not one thin dime out. He didn't take the slide that many elderly people do (as is their right, which I don't mean to degrade) of hospital stays, medication, and long-term care.

Tony Soprano was a man of gargantuan appetites which he could barely control. Thus so with James Gandolfini. It was the rawness and authenticity of his greedy impulses that made him so magnetic on the screen. The greediness of his appetites gave him an early grave but also made him rich and famous. Consumed by that which he was nourished by.

In this "fat-shaming" example, we might say the death of a respected actor ought to be an occasion to praise him, and not to offer up ideas about what he might have done to avert his fate.

What does respect for Tony Soprano's talent, humanity and career have to do with the fact that morbidly obese malnutrition is a problem right now? What, we should allow for a two-week "killing period" in our concern for the morbidly obese on account of the condolence we feel for Gandolfini? That's just weird. No one's shaming him.

Plus, it's mostly the fault of industries and lobbyists who block legislation to make healthy eating as accessible and encouraged a choice. If anyone deserves "shame", it's them. Not the American consumer - who is blocked at every turn from having enough accurate information, marketing and regulatory preference to be provided with a healthy consumer environment.

Geez Chick. There have to be better ways of staving off early-onset Alzheimers, man. Maybe crossword puzzles? I don't know. But this is getting a bit sad, man. It's not fun to watch this constant levying of imaginary accusations.

"So, racism is so pervasive that we shouldn't bat an eye at people's expressions of it? Is that your argument?"

There are number of things I find wrong with what happened with Paula Deen.

Sure they can fire her, if they want. That's their right. But, the same companies that fire white people for this actually pay blacks to do much worse. One is shamed and outcast and expected to apologize, while the other is made a star often precisely for their use of racist slurs or worse.

Second, I don't think that when people say those things in conversation, regardless of which direction it's aimed, they are really doing something I consider racist.

Real racism is judging peoples character, ability, value, worth or rights according to their race. Even this real racism is not necessarily damaging anyone in the micro. It's when it leads to actions that hurt or damage people, or that damage our relations with each other that we need to take action. That racism should be held up, criticized, and even punished by laws or firing.

The use of certain language or ideas on a personal or even public level that are not intended to take anything away from anyone should not be something that we get worked up about. Some of that talk even endears people of differing races to each other, or at least it can and has in the past in ways that we are losing. When I was a kid almost everyone identified friends with ethnic slurs, and if they were too whitebread, you found something else, like "shortie", or "big boy", or "red", or "bucky". Few escaped it.

It was mostly harmless, it often was a way of saying: you are a friend, and I notice you are different in this minor way that is not important enough to stop me from being your friend. That's the message of this kind of relating and speaking. It acknowledged the difference that was right there to see, and impossible to honestly ignore. It faced it, accepted it, and defused it. You only avoid it with people you are not friendly with. People you don't trust. That's what we all do now.

What we do now is dishonest, unfriendly, and the opposite of defusing it. We put the fuse in and cut it nice and short. We are ready to jump at the first person who happens to notice that huge hump on our back, and says so, even if they find it simply different and interesting, and knowing full well they have one of their own.

Supporters of Obamacare and similar schemes should hope we all die as Gandolfini did. He paid into Medicare 30 years (assuming he started working at 21) and got not one thin dime out. He didn't take the slide that many elderly people do (as is their right, which I don't mean to degrade) of hospital stays, medication, and long-term care.

Some evidence that Gandolfini actually resented caring for the needs of the elderly as you do would be nice.

I'm glad Gandolfini loved his liquor and food with abandon. I'm mostly envious of that last dinner. I wouldn't let myself get that fat, and therefore have probably enjoyed food a lot less that he did, but that's my problem. We need people like him. The worst world I can imagine is bunch of skinny self-conscious worry-warts bitching at each other for enjoying their lives in a different ways from "the ideal".

Good thing we can count on Bag to bring the "pro-early death" sentiment.

Anyway, in researching Darrell et al's love of hefty BMIs as being inherently healthier (apparently from 25 to 30 they are), I ran across something on a British cyclist with a syndrome that prevents him from accumulating any fat, and then got to this bizarre images result on it.

But, the same companies that fire white people for this actually pay blacks to do much worse.

I don't watch the Food Network. Are you saying they have shows w/black chefs who talk like NWA?

People keep talking about Deen as if she was just calling her employees "my niggaz" or something. The problem w/ what she said--no matter whether it's what she's admitted to or what she's accused of saying--is the Moonlight and Magnolias attitude on display. Basically, what she said she wanted was to have the guests at a wedding served by a staff consisting 100% of men who looked like Uncle Ben.

How can anyone be surprised that a cooking network doesn't want to be associated w/that kind of attitude?

Amartel said...The very vocal outrage over Paula Deen is another blame deflection technique in which the subject, who has said and/or thought all the things Paula Deen has admitted to, or worse,

"So, racism is so pervasive that we shouldn't bat an eye at people's expressions of it? Is that your argument?"

Yesssss that's just EXACTLY what I said. My comment had nothing at all to do with Hollywood/media hypocrisy and blame deflection and was really an argument for ignoring pervasive racism. Why oh why did I not see this before. Thank you, O wise one, for lifting the scales from my eyes, for allowing me to see th .... Aw fuck off.

It isn't a disease; it is a side effect of neurochemical problem. People who feel an abnormal degree of hunger eat more than their body needs, and thus become fatter. If you felt an abnormal amount of hunger, you'd be fat too. Virtually nobody has the willpower it takes to live with constant hunger in a world where food is cheap.

Personally, I wonder if a good bit of the obesity "epidemic" isn't caused by the modern popularity of antidepressants. Many antidepressants (especially the ones that mess with serotonin levels) stimulate the appetite.

"I don't watch the Food Network. Are you saying they have shows w/black chefs who talk like NWA?"

I'm talking about the overarching corporations that own these shows, or others situations where that is the case. They often own recording artists or use them in their advertizing or as guest or whatever. They just aren't held to any such standard, and only because of their skin color.

"How can anyone be surprised that a cooking network doesn't want to be associated w/that kind of attitude?"

They have that right, but I think it's just too sensitive. I'm saying the audience is too sensitive, which forces their hand.

We notice it, but that's all. Nobody got hurt, nobody was really embarrassed by it or offended unless they wanted to be. For me, no harm - no foul. It's just colorful conversation.

Even if she actually did a wedding like that, it would be people voluntarily playing those parts, getting paid for acting a part that has some historic or artistic basis. Nobody would be required to drink from separate fountains or paid a fraction of the normal rate due to race. It would be theatre, and nothing more. We should all be able to handle that.

If she wanted a caveman themed wedding where the groom dragged the wife in by the hair, I'm sure some women would be outraged, but she should not get fired for talking about that either. Should she?

The issue isn't fat. The issue is inflammation of the cardio vascular system. It's why marathon runners also have a high number of heart attacks. When our cardiovascular system has inflammation, LDL cholesterol is used to "patch" the inflamed area. The more patch, the likely a blockage. And eventually blockages lead to strokes and heart attacks. The key is to reduce the inflammation.

At the same time, heartburn is also from inflammation.

So, it means we have to figure out what inflames the body. This can come environment toxins but the most likely culprit is diet. Grains, especially wheat, are not made for human consumption. We don't digest them well and when we do, grains convert to sugar. High doses of sugar lead to the release of insulin. Insulin is highly inflammatory. Further, vegetable oils, grain-fed red meats, and process foods also lead to inflammation.

A moderate Paleo style diet can reduce a lot of this inflammation. There is lots of information on paleo out there. Robb Wolf and Chris Kresser are two places to start. Telling someone to simply eat less won't help them lose weight if they are gaining weight due to inflammation. If it did, a lot more people would be thin.

"Good thing we can count on Bag to bring the "pro-early death" sentiment. "

I do my part for the collective. I'm going hang gliding tomorrow for the first time in months, and I'm scared to death, but I do it for us all.

I think I speak for a lot of people when I say Ritmo, please join me and do your part too. You could join a street gang, carry a 9mm in the front of you pants, and a gangsta sister under each arm. You gotta take some risks for Obamacare to work.

So let's see. Health of the individual to live later, suck off more social security etc., the state is there for you.

When it comes to encouraging out of wedlock child-bearing, and all that, the state is there for you.

In fact, wherever the state can be in personal matters, there it is. And it will become there stronger and stronger. Soon you will be required to get check-ups, because it is anti-social to not get them.

It's not about Paula Dean at all. I've never even seen her show, and I rarely watch the network.

It's about this tension created in our culture by the fake outrage that is just seeming to grow every day, swallowing up our ability to openly and honestly engage one another as equals. The growing density of landmines everywhere in our culture. It's actually getting scary just to be honest and open, and relaxed, especially if you depend on your image. You never know what new triggers are are being invented, and what will become a new viral outrage, that just a short time ago was normal.

We are suffering from a kind of cultural hypochondria, similar to the medical hypochondria that convinces us that everything we eat or do needs to be evaluated as good or evil. It's a slice of butter, or it's a colloquial expression. Neither will kill you instantly upon the slightest exposure. Life is about this stuff. We don't really want it sterile, and pure, and always non-offending, do we?

I did? Well, I don't remember it, but yea, death by a thousand cuts is a big part of my point.

I always think of that movie "Brazil", and it seems impossible that things would get that ridiculous, but everyday, it seems like more and more you just can trust your fellow humans to just be fair, understanding, tolerant, mind their own business, and have a fucking sense of humor about our differences. I'm not talking about people in here but the whiney pundits that love to jack up the outrage and point fingers.

I'm talking about the overarching corporations that own these shows, or others situations where that is the case. They often own recording artists or use them in their advertizing or as guest or whatever. They just aren't held to any such standard, and only because of their skin color.

The same corporation responsible for broadcasting the childrens' cartoon "Dexter's Labratory" is responsible for broadcasting "Game of Thrones". Despite this, if the creators of "Dexter's Labratory" decided to air an episode wherein Dexter's big sister had graphic sex with a hairy barbarian, everyone involved would get fired. And you can be sure there'd be a few people such as yourself who bemoaned the hypocrisy of it all, that a company willing to show sex scenes wouldn't include them on every single show on every channel it owned.

But it isn't hypocrisy. It is branding. Deen was fired from the Food Network, not the Fat Racist Cunt Network. If there was a Fat Racist Cunt Network, people starring in shows on it wouldn't get fired for being fat racist cunts. People starring in shows on the Food Network, however, are expected to appeal to the middle-class white housewife demographic, and your average middle-class white housewife doesn't like people who call black kids "niggers".

Wow! So many people are so intent on killing this woman's career. I admit, I never watched her, I never saw how she rose let alone understand now why she must fall. I do understand the pride fall thing though.

Did she enrich anyone's life through cooking or was it all just a big joke as Chip intimates?

I said above it's not about Paula Dean, but for example, if someone were to see your comment including "Fat Racist Cunt" they might say you aren't fit to be around women in the workplace, or have a daughter live with you. They could make the same the kind of argument you are. You simply said the wrong words, and therefore you must be punished, and are unacceptable for things that have little to do with why or what you said.

A female Revenant might say you were a sexist cocksucker for saying that, and then we can chase her down and ruin her life too. It's all so wonderfully tolerant.

Wow! So many people are so intent on killing this woman's career. I admit, I never watched her, I never saw how she rose let alone understand now why she must fall. I do understand the pride/fall thing though.

Did she enrich anyone's life through cooking or was it all just a big joke as Chip intimates?

I think the comment above from Revenant is simply colorful language, but I could see it be published and some people could quote it selectively, and make the common arguments used today for why the man who said that is unemployable as a doctor, a teacher, a social worker, a politician, hell almost anything. That's the hysteria we are quickly creating as standard policy.

I don't care about Paula Deen. She's a vulgar silly person, and an Obama voter finding out a little too late that the Progressive Indulgence System ain't quite all it was promised to be. (Like everything Progressive, it's a great delusion that fails in practice.) The point is the scale of The Outrage to The Crime, the apparent need to dissemble about what she actually said, and all the people ostentatiously grabbing tar and feathers and jumping on the bandwagon to run her out of town. It's odd and unnerving that people are so insecure that they feel a burning need to shame a cooking show hostess for her backward ways. In a lot of cases it belies an underlying racism for which they are compensating.

It's not that everybody does it. Its that everybody does something, something unacceptable to someone somewhere. I think the phrase "Let he who is without sin..." was used to stop just what we are seeing happen. Dean wasn't a whore, but she said some bad words.

Oh and Chip? Flashback! I'm remembering (and appreciating) the night you took him to task for jumping on vbspurs the night she returned (she never came back :(. It's too bad you weren't around when he went after Darcy: link. But then, sadly, neither was I. We do have real lives, it seems.

It's not that everybody does it. Its that everybody does something, something unacceptable to someone somewhere.

I've never known anyone who's ever thought that a really cool wedding reception would involve being waited on by Uncle Ben lookalikes. And I'm glad I haven't.

This doesn't strike me as a phony controversy whipped up by grievance-mongers. Why do I think that? B/c I'm not overly PC, and yet I almost spit out my coffee when I read the initial quote attributed to her by her ex-employee. Deen denied the very worst of it, but admitted to saying something pretty close to it.

One last time--it's not the magic word per se, it's the underlying attitude being revealed. And it's not "trying to destroy her" for executives to worry about the damage she could to their business. She had her chance to control the spin and she couldn't.

Poor Paula has nothing to fall back on except her restaurants and cookbook sales.

(1) He's fat himself, or knows somebody who is, and he really doesn't want to believe the message ("fat kills") is true, so, in tried and true primate fashion, he attacks the integrity of the messenger. We all know truth can never be delivered by morally flawed people.

(2) He fits into the "establishment" side of the primate poo-flinging match he came across (the other side being the "bomb throwers"), and wants attention. He needn't be a permanent member of that side, it may well just have been the one that offered the most opportunity for attention.

(3) He's not only thin but smug about it, and secretly feels contempt for fat people. He makes a big show of hostility towards "fat shamers" to prove he's not one of them, both to the audience and to his conscience.

Hi Ann, great blog. Fat people result in our success of growing food, shelter, clean water, and medicine. Most people would love to be fat, if the time period was the late 1800 or early. Fat people have reserves to live through that winter, e.g., a time of cold days, no food, no frig, no stove, no heat for that winter shelter. Fat people can survive this. Today just one nuclear winter and come spring, only fat people will be left. We role the dice some win, some lose, but some day this winter will come. So stay fat, and one may just survive. Us skinny people will be gone by February. Love Ann, take care.

What I have Heard today (rumors spoken from Internet rumors) is Drugs, Cigarettes etc: Somehow we Lessen the Loss By Attributing It To Something We Think is Socially Unforgivable. I remember Belushi dying and the Same Responses akin to "He Had It Coming" rather than the Loss. That is the Connection I was Making: Talent that Will be Lost to Rumor. The Racetrack on Where we Measure Talent. The Hill We All Fall Down, but Usually With No One Watching.

I don't know that the tweets were so outrageous. They seemed mostly to be untimely nags or even targeting the tweeter such as "I need to lose weight." I'll agree with unnecessary and possibly inappropriate but I don't see the need for outrage if that's the worst they could find on Twitter.

Also... Steve Jobs and alternative medicine? Was that wrong to mention? Sure... if you're talking to his family it's extreme bad manners, up there with telling the parents of someone who died in a car accident that they shouldn't have been driving so fast or shouldn't have been drinking. But we tell *other* people and hold up a dead drunk driver or someone who lets themselves die of a normally treatable condition as warnings to others. It's not *horrible* to do so.

Dean was not fired for offending her audience, she was fired because it offended people with hair triggers, which is a lot of people these days. Then those people convinced the network to fire her, as they told the unoffended who care more about food than race that they are bad for not caring about race all the time. Then the hair triggers said "see, your audience is outraged".

I understand the networks reaction, they didn't have to fire her, but they knew that's the way to get the heat off fastest. That's their responsibility - businesses are usually cowardly. You have too much at stake to take unnecessary risks.

I don't think it makes me a racist to say: "so what, she said something dumb, and apologized". But, you see how people have to make up stuff they don't really know, like a dangerous underlying racism that somehow is gonna hurt someone. Who? Who was hurt by that? Maybe there is just not much there in the first place if you have to make up the really bad part.

In Chip Ahoy terms the man ate three meals at once and that was only one meal that day and without any regular meal things in it that go like: [protein-slow carb-fat] sort of arrangement. I do like foie gras myself but a large portion would last a week enjoyed each day. I know people who drink a lot but not like that, maybe that much over time, but never order more than one at a time, and they are straightup alcoholics.

Shaming? Is eating like that so abnormal? Was that a regular meal for him? If so, how was he alive this long? Look, I don't care who you are, where you came from, what in your past you endured, that is too much food at one time and way too much alcohol. Regarding food he was a direct example to his real life son. Imagine his son seeing all that while having a regular meal and two little innocent drinks of his own.

I actually try to be that big of a pig sometimes and cannot do it. I tried it at Buckhorn Exchange just a few weeks ago and failed. While right behind me a table of gigantic linebackers were dividing up their ticket. I overheard one guy say, and this is a regular meal for theses guys, "let's just say $75.00 each and be done with it." A bargain actually. I turned around and looked a them like whatdoya jip the guy on his tip?

After reading what he ate and imagining that this is his normal I was instantly struck with a sense of cosmic balance that went something along the lines of there is only so much quantity of material you can push in your pie hole for processing in one lifetime that may or may not be used up, and only so much alcohol per lifetime, with great margin for variation between individuals, still, there is a human limit to food and alcohol processing capability, and this individual shoved his full lifetime of processing in 51 years.

Okay that theory sucks.

It was too much at once for a prolonged period. It could have been fixed by a reversal of habits, but it wasn't.

It is a shame. On his eating habits. For his son to witness , for his wife to be suddenly widowed, for us to lose a good actor to something so stupid as overeating/drinking. So yeah, shame away.

A little girl just now knocked on the door and returned a platter. A woman was standing behind her. I never saw the child or the woman but I do recognize the plate, "You forgot to take this back."

"Well you are the sweetest little thing. Thank you." I have no idea where I left this platter. Croissants or turnovers or something.

I take peculiar pleasure in reminding my rail thin colleague who occasionally comments on my father's girth that her dead father died at a younger age of a wasting cancer. Dead dead dead. My father is still alive.

I knew about this for a while. Instapundit linked to this post by Andrew Fox today. (I have a signed copy of Fat White Vampire Blues but haven't actually read it, maybe I ought to.)

According to Fox: "And that’s before we even get to the actual content of these two articles. Barry and Mike praise their pantheons of women writers, editors, and publishers to the skies! They idolize many of them. Far from giving them condescending pats on the head, they fully recognize the daunting social handicaps these women faced in the professional world of publishing prior to the 1980s and cite them as enterprising, talented, and incredibly driven pioneers. There are no snide put-downs in these articles; there are no put-downs at all."

While talking about women in science fiction these men apparently used the old fashioned term "lady" and mentioned that someone was attractive.

For that they're getting a full-on global shaming treatment.

It's truly a case of someone using the wrong words and no one seeming to care at all about the context or meaning.

I have to agree with bagoh that we risk a great deal to make this sort of thing the social norm.

But, you see how people have to make up stuff they don't really know, like a dangerous underlying racism that somehow is gonna hurt someone. Who? Who was hurt by that?

Me, for one. I am hurt by that.

How? Shrugging off this sort of wistfulness for the good old days of servile blacks is the sort of attitude that contributes to the persistent suspicion by blacks that whites really don't view them as equals.

Re: "After reading what he ate and imagining that this is his normal I was instantly struck with a sense of cosmic balance that went something along the lines of there is only so much quantity of material you can push in your pie hole for processing in one lifetime that may or may not be used up, and only so much alcohol per lifetime, with great margin for variation between individuals, still, there is a human limit to food and alcohol processing capability, and this individual shoved his full lifetime of processing in 51 years. "

Hey Icepick. So what was the terrible thing you heard about me? Being evicted?

Let me to man up and intervene in the interest of full disclosure. On the blog "Ambiance" (BTW where I tattle on Titus) I said in response to the long time Althouse commenter, Ron, in essence, you're not alone in being homeless, Palladian is too,

The real racists have been slain, yet the outrage and grievance and the one-sided voting gets stronger as the real racism evaporates, only to be replaced by whatever we can use to maintain the outrage, because the outrage is the drug, and it feels good. It's like someone addicted to pain killers still complaining about the long gone pain. They love that somebody will listen when they dishonestly say it still hurts. It's a lie. She didn't hurt anyone. Face down the lie.

for example, if someone were to see your comment including "Fat Racist Cunt" they might say you aren't fit to be around women in the workplace, or have a daughter live with you

I might say they owe me a million dollars apiece for annoying me. Let's see who gets lucky first.

No American has ever been barred from working with women and/or lost custody of his kids solely for using the word "cunt". The absolute worst-case scenario is that my current employer would fire me. Yeah, and? If I don't like my employer's attitude I can tell *him* to take a flying leap, too. :)

I Have smeared Peanut Butter, Grape Jelly and All-American Apple Pie Over My Naked Chest and Abdomen. I Will Dance in the Moonlight.. My Metaphorical Walnuts Will Feel the Slight Breeze; my Nipples will Feel the Chill and Respond.

The problem is that blacks have never developed the level of trust in the Republican party required to vote strategically. Jews split their vote, not perfectly but significantly so that they have some say in both parties policies, as do many other religious and ethnic groups.

Up until now this has only been a problem for blacks, since they are effectively disenfranchised. From now on, if they continue to vote at the levels they have in the last two elections, it is going to be a problem for the Republican party. For the moment I think the Repubs are hoping that this is a temporary Obama-specific phenomena. I think that once people start voting, particularly older women, they will tend to continue voting.

Imagine you're a black person who's retired, unemployed, on welfare, or working at a minimum wage job. Why should you vote Republican?

Like Chip S. I don't get the black qualification for those categories.

An American in any of these groups would vote Republican because they care more about the future of our country in the long-term than how much they can benefit personally in the short-term by government entitlements of one sort or another.

Such a person would believe that they would benefit more from living in a thriving nation of self-reliant people than from a nation of people looking for the government to take care of them with a ponzi scheme that is certain to crash in the next twenty years or sooner.

Ah. Alas, yes, I am technically homeless. I was evicted late February from the crumbling loft in Brooklyn where I had lived for more than a decade. I stayed with various friends for a couple of weeks, and then was fortuitously allowed to occupy a dorm suite at the college where I teach. Because of summer occupancy, I had to vacate the dorm at the beginning of June, so I've been "wandering the earth" since then. I have to find a new, permanent place in NYC in time for fall classes, but I dread that because I have no savings at all, and no regular income until September. Most of my belongings (a vast collection) is in storage in New York, so I have to pay that storage bill, make enough to survive and also extra to send to my mother (who I've partially supported since she became permanently disabled). I've also been dealing with some serious health issues, so It's a lot to deal with, and I've been living from day to day. I've sold a lot of my valuables and pick up the odd freelance job but the future terrifies me. I'm currently selling the last of my camera equipment, so if anyone is in the market for a Nikon 60mm macro lens (my favorite lens of all), place your bid.

I'd flog prints from my "Sketchbook" website but my printing equipment is currently in storage so I'm only able to sell new drawings or commission work at this point.

This is probably more information than you wanted, but it's nice to unburden myself once in a while. I really appreciate your good wishes.

Let me to man up and intervene in the interest of full disclosure. On the blog "Ambiance" (BTW where I tattle on Titus) I said in response to the long time Althouse commenter, Ron, in essence, you're not alone in being homeless, Palladian is too,

No problemo. I'm not ashamed of my situation and if I can serve as a comfort of some sort to anyone else in similar circumstances, I'm happy to do it. I'm a good example of the fact that anyone, through the vicissitudes of life and fortune, can find themselves in deep trouble. It can all fall apart, for any of us. I had to learn that lesson the hard way.

Listen to me Chip. Come off the ledge, Chip. Libertarian-ism won't solve anything. I talked to your Mom, and she'll take you back. You can write in Spanish and type on internet all you want. She'll even pay the Comcast bill. Just clean up the basement.

That's something that can happen over the electric Internet or in a bookstore. Nobody else need know.

Revenant said...

But it isn't hypocrisy. It is branding. Deen was fired from the Food Network, not the Fat Racist Cunt Network. If there was a Fat Racist Cunt Network, people starring in shows on it wouldn't get fired for being fat racist cunts. People starring in shows on the Food Network, however, are expected to appeal to the middle-class white housewife demographic, and your average middle-class white housewife doesn't like people who call black kids "niggers".

You sure about that?

Or do they just do it only in the presence pf people of like sentiment?

AnUnreasonableTroll said...

That, in turn, feeds phenomena like 95% black majorities for Obama.

The problem is that blacks have never developed the level of trust in the Republican party required to vote strategically. Jews split their vote, not perfectly but significantly so that they have some say in both parties policies, as do many other religious and ethnic groups.

I think this is proof positive Troll is brain-damaged.

From 1866 to about 1960, blacks voted Republican in significant numbers. The promise of the Welfare State and the excuses of community organizing changed that.

Palladian wrote: This is probably more information than you wanted, but it's nice to unburden myself once in a while. I really appreciate your good wishes.

Not too much info. There topics where there are TMI are few, and they ultimately fall into two categories. This isn't one of them.

I'm really bummed to hear about this, Palladian. What the fuck is going on in the country? Incidentally, my family and I can uncomfortably close to ending up on the street in the last few years. A few lucky breaks is all that kept us from living in our car.

Imagine you're a black person who's retired, unemployed, on welfare, or working at a minimum wage job. Why should you vote Republican?

Why should you vote for the Dems when they're promising to import tens of millions of another minority to compete for the jobs you want, suppress the wages you'd like to earn, jam the welfare roles so that benefits need to be cut, and oh, BTW, perhaps even displace you from your traditional neighborhoods. (See Compton for the last.)

But hey, in return for that you get to vote for a guy with a different ethnicity than yours (at least on the black side), from a different background than yours, whose main concern is using your racial resentments for his own petty needs.

None of that means they should vote Republican (at this point in time, no one should, as they're almost as awful as the Dems), but it is mystifying that a large group of people would consistently vote against their own self-interests, in favor of a party that has consistently fucked them in the ass since ... well, since that party was founded way back in the day.